Houston We Have a Problem… 027 24/03/07
Word
Template, The Root of all Evil…
If
I create a document in Microsoft Word and then go to 'file' then 'print' a
window pops up stating that: 'Word has
encountered a problem and needs to close’. There is an option to tick a box for
'Recover my work and restart Microsoft Word'. However, even after saving the
document and recalling it the same error message returns.
David
Hawke, by email
It’s
probably a corrupt printer driver or ‘Normal’ document template. My money would
be on the latter but it’s easier and quicker to eliminate the printer driver as
a possibility. Go to Printers and Faxes on the Start menu (or in Control
Panel), right-click on your printer icon, select Delete then under Tasks select
Add a printer and re-install it (you might need the setup disk that came with
your printer, so keep it handy).
If that doesn’t work then
there may be a problem with the Normal.dot template. In fact many Word ills can
be traced back to this file. It contains most of Word’s configuration settings
and it is being constantly re-written so soon or later errors creep in. The
trick is to delete or rename the file and this forces Word to create a new one,
effectively resetting it to its factory fresh condition. First make a copy of
your Normal.dot file, (just in case it's not corrupt) and save it in another
folder. In Windows XP you’ll find it in: C:\Documents and
Settings\<yourname>\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates In older versions of Word
it's in: C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. Delete or rename the
original Normal.dot and re-boot.
Horrible Hyphens
I crave your help to customize my XP to never ever hyphenate a word, as
simple as possible please so that I can also pass it on to my granddaughter.
Ruth Bartlett, by email
Hyphenation is a touchy subject so I won’t get into the
debate about when they should and should not be used. I presume you just
dislike the way Word uses them, which can be a little idiosyncratic at times,
so here is how to take back control. If you are using justified text layouts
then they will be inserted at the end of lines to ensure even line length. To
switch this off go Tools > Language > Hyphenation and uncheck everything.
Otherwise they are inserted, or suggested by Word’s Spelling and Grammar
checker. To disable it go to Tools > Options, select the Spelling &
Grammar tab then under Grammar click the Settings button, uncheck 'Hyphenated
and compound words’, click OK and exit the dialogue boxes.
Static Danger
Last
year, couple of weeks before going on holiday to Cyprus I lost all power to my
Panasonic NV-GS400 camcorder while it was connected via the FireWire port
during an editing session.
The repairs involved replacing the main board, which came to £300! A few days
ago the DV in/out function failed again. I was informed by an engineer
that both problems were probably as a result of static electricity
feeding back from the PC to the camcorder. Could you tell me any more about
this phenomenon?
Richard W. Brown,
Malvern
I have been handling –
often carelessly -- static-sensitive devices for more than 30 years and in all
that time I cannot recall zapping a single chip. I’ve only come across a tiny
handful of cases where static might be to blame, though I have heard of
countless lazy service engineers using it as excuse for not fixing a fault
properly…
Modern Complimentary Metal Oxide Silicon (CMOS) chips are very well protected
against static discharge. That’s not to say they can’t be damaged but it takes
a lot to do so, a nearby lightning strike on a power or telephone line, for
example. The only way I could see it happening in your case would be if there
were a very serious electrical fault on the FireWire socket, though even that
is extremely unlikely as nowhere in the PC, apart from the power supply, is
there any more than 12 volts. If there were any mains leakage the PC just
wouldn’t work and any static charge that might build up on the camcorder or the
PC is instantly discharged to Earth.
Two into One Doesn’t
Go
I recently bought a new
PC, which has AVG Free Edition installed with lifetime updates. On my old
PC I had Norton Internet Security 2007, which, because of regular updates still
has 470 days of support left. Is it possible or wise to attempt to run
both applications on the same PC?
Stephen Clark, by email
You
cannot have two anti-virus programs on a PC at the same time. Every antivirus
program has a 'signature library',
which contains inert samples of virus code, used to help identify a virus. If
you install a second virus checker the chances are the first program will
mistakenly identify the new program’s Signature Library as a potential
infection.
For what it is worth the
free versions of AVG (and Avast!) have been protecting my home and office PCs
for many years (links to free antivirus software http://tinyurl.com/27txx2). I get sent
quite a lot of infected email and a fair number of ‘dodgy’ programs but to date
not a single infection has got through.
---end---
© R. Maybury 2007
1802
| 
